Meat and livestock

Farming animals accounts for around 15% of global greenhouse gas emissions and the UN expects meat demand to double by 2050. Meanwhile reports reiterate the toll our health pays from a meat-heavy diet. Yet livestock play a crucial part in many rural communities and some efforts to reduce our carbon footprint may be worse for animal welfare.

The Food Ethics Council is working with others to explore way through this quagmire. The easy answer may be to eat less meat, but that raises a host more issues - ethical and pragmatic - for governments, citizens and people in the industry.

We produced a series of reports for WWF-UK as part of the Livestock dialogues.